


Flames From Embers

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 12:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5584852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The orphaned boy and the one-handed alchemist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flames From Embers

The house where Huey now lived alone was growing dark.

The fire in the grate had gone out two days ago, but for the past two nights the bonfire in the center square had cast long wavering shadows into the room, so there had been no darkness. Tonight, no light came creeping in through the windows. Huey looked at the lantern by the door. In the past, his mother had handed him the lantern and sent him trotting over to the neighbors’ house when they needed a light. Now—

Huey shut his eyes and shuddered.

Time passed, and the room grew darker. There was only the sound of Huey breathing, until—suddenly—there was something more. Huey heard the sound of footsteps crunching outside and felt his stomach sink. He wondered if someone had called him a witch, too; he wondered if they would tie him to the stake in the center square and watch him burn like they had everyone else. (Everyone except his mother, who had stepped proudly off the dock and smiled at Huey to give him strength before she slipped beneath the waves. So why—why— _why_ couldn’t he feel strong, if his mother had done that for his sake?)

Along with the footsteps came the flickering light of a lamp, and Huey closed his eyes against it. He wondered if he would be able to smile like his mother. He wondered if he would be able to hold in his screams like Juliette. He wondered what hurt more, to burn or to drown.

The footsteps stopped outside the front door, and then—without a knock, without anyone speaking to identify themselves—the door creaked open, and Huey opened his eyes to see what his fate would be.

“Ah, good. You are still here.”

Huey narrowed his eyes in puzzlement. The figure who’d just entered his home was an old man with a sturdy build and frighteningly clever eyes that peered out over a long but neat beard. He held the door open with his left hand; the right was a false one made of wood, and he’d hooked the lantern in the space between the fingers and the thumb.

“Huey, aren’t you?” the man said. There was an accent to his voice. “That’s what they said your name was. May I come in?”

He already was in, and Huey knew now that he didn’t have the strength to chase anyone away. He wanted to, but he didn’t have the power to do so.

The old man sighed at his silence and continued in a steady, impassive voice.

“I’ve come by this village before, and I recognize your face. So you should understand that I’m not with the Inquisitors, don’t you?”

Huey remained silent. Yes, he recognized the old man faintly, and he understood the old man’s logic, but that didn’t mean anything. Even if he wasn’t with the Inquisitors, that didn’t mean anything.

The old man stepped deeper into Huey’s home, placing his lantern on the table next to the one that Huey had left cold. He sat down in the larger chair—Huey’s mother’s chair. But it wasn’t that anymore. Huey looked down at his feet.

“Huey, I’m Dalton Strauss. I want to make you an offer. May I?”

There was a momentary silence. Then Huey raised his eyes and spoke.

“You came in even though I didn’t say you could,” he said. His own voice sounded unfamiliar after long days of hearing nothing but distant screams. “You’re going to make your offer whether I say you can or not.”

At that, the old man’s—Dalton’s—beard twitched with a smile, as if he approved of Huey’s response. “Yes, that is my intention.”

“Can I refuse?”

“What, already?”

“Why would I trust any offer you made? Why would I trust—” Huey stumbled over his next words, his face twisting in a moment of pain; then he clenched his hands into fists atop his knees and spoke more evenly. “Why should I trust _anything_?”

Dalton nodded and adjusted his false hand on his wrist. “That’s a fair question,” he said. “But what if I told you that you _shouldn’t_ trust me?”

Huey narrowed his eyes, waiting for the old man’s next words.

Dalton leaned back carefully in the chair, eliciting a creak, and continued. “Here’s the offer I have for you: I want you to come with me and become my student. This village is done for. By this time next week, there will hardly be anyone left to draw water, let alone look after you. You could try to make it on your own, but at your age and coming from a place like this, you have no chance of making it to somewhere safe. If that’s your intention, you’d be better off pretending to accept my offer and making a run for it at the next city we pass through. I won’t stop you if that’s what you choose.”

Huey stared. Everything he said was true.

“But you shouldn’t trust me, because the art I want to teach you is precisely the sort of thing that catches the eye of people like those Inquisitors. It’s not exactly what the lot here was practicing, but it’s not something the Church looks kindly on, either. Your mother was innocent, Huey; I want to make you guilty.”

He spoke calmly, his eyes never leaving Huey’s and his face unlike any Huey had ever seen. Abruptly, Huey realized what made it different: it wasn’t the soft smile that one usually turned towards a child. It wasn’t a smile at all, but instead something serious and calculating.

“That said, the city I’ll take you to is a safe haven where the Church has no influence. And the art I’ll teach you will give you power, even at your age—whatever power you desire. The power to protect, for instance, or the power to avenge.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, as if he saw right through Huey’s skin to the place in his chest that felt like it had suddenly caught fire.

“Whatever you want to use that power for,” Dalton concluded, “I won’t stop you.”

Unable to hold Dalton’s gaze any longer, Huey averted his eyes.

He was shaking—his knees, and the fists still clenched atop them. And he could feel his heart racing in his chest the way it had been racing for two weeks now, ever since the Inquisitors took his mother away from him. But this time, the cause was different. This time—this time, there was eagerness in it.

Across the room from him, he heard the chair creak again as Dalton got to his feet.

“I’ll give you time to think about it,” he said, “but not much. There’s nothing here to keep me in this village for more than a day, and I won’t be coming back. Make your decision by nightfall tomorrow.”

He slid his false hand into the grip of the lantern again, sending shadows dancing across the floor as it swung. Huey watched them shift, but when he heard the door open once more, he felt his heart in his throat and he leaped to his feet.

“Wait.”

He became the target of Dalton’s calculating gaze once more, but he refused to quail. He stared back, bright and clear.

“I’ve made my decision now,” he said.

Dalton, suspecting his intention, raised one impressed eyebrow.

Huey took a deep breath. The words in his throat felt surprisingly light for ones that he knew would change the course of his life—but at least this change would be one made by his own hand.

“Take me with you.”


End file.
